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Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

paulgraham.com

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Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#261

Post by Roboprog »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #136
Tarrosion wrote: post #103

I generally find PG very convincing, but not here. Opening up immigration would have major side effects, though probably it would help companies hire top programmers. But rather than bear that cost, would we as a society be better off if we tried to educate children better, get more kids hooked on being makers, whatever it is you believe is important? Fundamentally, making the 95-to-5 population comparison only makes…

Do you think YC startups are lying when they say they're struggling to hire? It is obviously in our best interests to hire every great programmer we come across - no matter what. If you really think that there are some great developers out there who are struggling to find a job in the US please send them my way or send them to ANY of the YC startups and they'll be hired within 2 weeks. How long do you think it takes…

Stop trying to shove more people into the SF bay area peninsula?

A 100K/yr salary won't buy, or even rent, much of a place for a family to live in near Palo Alto or San Francisco. But it sure will in Sacramento.

... or Fresno, or Portland, or Seattle, or Denver, or Phoenix, or Boise, or Minneapolis, ...

The tech industry needs to think outside the Silicon Valley box, and consider that while people should be grouped together for networking and other multiplier effects, it might be time to have more than one town in which to do business - a location that is not so closed in with outrageous real estate costs.

I almost took a job in Mtn View a few years ago, but wanted a 50% salary increase (vs Sacramento) to compensate for housing. So, it didn't happen.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#262

Post by OmarIsmail »

gaius wrote: post #190
OmarIsmail wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you understand the world isn't that simple right? Imagine you lived on a land with 100 square feet. You wanted to open a store, but the big supermarket (because they started early) already has 60 square feet and the price of the other 40 square feet is astronomical. So you can only rent out 5 square feet. Well, you can't do much with 5 square feet, and that big market is making lots of money with theirs. So they…

Do you understand that the world is not that simple? The only artificial shortage in play, is created by those self same companies - or unemployment in the US particularly among 40+ programmers would be 0%. If you care about the long term future of the human race you would be fighting both ageism and indentured servitude.

If you know of any great 40+ programmers please send them my way.

I think you are ascribing a conspiracy with something that can be much more easily explained. 40+ y/o programmers first started learning programming 20+ years ago when programming was more low level in general. Furthermore their skills were honed on broken processes and outdated technology. And, if a programmer has been in the industry for 20+ years and they are good, they've most likely made enough money to retire, or are in a management position (and expecting a management position). Lastly, there were a lot less programmers entering the field 20+ years ago than there are today (I'm guessing on this one admittedly).

When you take all of these factors together, how many job-seeking unemployed 40+ programmers are really out there? My guess is that if they are job-seeking and unemployed, they should be looking inwards for why. It's probably a problem that they can solve themselves. And of course it doesn't have to be skill based issues - most people don't live in SF which is where a lot of programmer hiring is happening now. By 40+ you have a family with roots that people don't want to uproot.

If you know of any good programmers that are willing to work as an engineer (not manager) in SF then please please PLEASE send them my way.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#263

Post by Chronic30 »

rifung wrote: post #232
oe wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe interview them before hiring? :)

The problem is that it's extremely difficult to identify whether someone will excel at a job just through an interview. Even if someone really impresses everyone during the interview phase, it's totally possible that once they get hired they'll hate whatever you have them do and just do a mediocre job at it.

Well then the interview process seems to be the problem then.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#264

Post by pastProlog »

kaykay wrote: post #209
pastProlog wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Over 100,000 H1-B's are coming over every year. This keeps discussing exceptional programmers. You mean we need more than 100,000 exceptional programmers coming over every year? The reality is that the idea that even 10,000 of these people are exceptional programmers is a laugh. Every year 100,000 H1-Bs can come in. To believe this article, we'd have to pretend that we have a big wall up preventing these dozens…

Where did you get the > 100000 H1B's number?

The US State Department, this page has a graph of H1-B visa issuances and links to some of the reports -

http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and-policy...

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services web page has numbers as well.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#265

Post by [deleted] »

frostmatthew wrote: post #216
rgbrgb wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> something as inconsequential as a shopping website, or Yet Another Chat App Alright so first off, 150k will give you a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle in SF/SV (assuming you have no dependents, in which case it's just middle class). It's really not the astronomical salary that you seem to be imagining. Secondly, it is completely impractical to pay people based on the "difficulty" of their work. Difficulty,…

> Alright so first off, 150k will give you a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle in SF/SV...It's really not the astronomical salary that you seem to be imagining. If we're going to say we shouldn't limit ourselves to 5% of workers then perhaps we shouldn't limit ourselves to 5% of the land. There's plenty of places in the country where 150k would be a very comfortable salary.

[deleted]

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#267

Post by bengali3 »

kohanz wrote: post #5

There exists no practical, reliable method to identify the "great" programmers from the rest (other than by employing them or working with them over a significant amount of time). Many of them interview poorly. If you could actually identify these people, you'd have a billion dollar idea. So that implies that in order to grant entry to the "great" programmers, the door needs to be wide open to everyone. I'm not sayin…

agreed, imagine how many great programmers could be made instead of bought & traded?

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#268

Post by arh68 »

xiaoma wrote: post #10

> The US has less than 5% of the world's population. Which means if the qualities that make someone a great programmer are evenly distributed, 95% of great programmers are born outside the US. This assumption is repeated throughout the essay, but I'm not particularly convinced it's true. Why would the qualities be evenly distributed between first world countries such as the US where programming is respected and well…

It's a terrible assumption. If you believe Computer Science education has anything to do with programming ability, you shouldn't be surprised the US has many, if not most, of the best programmers already [1,2].

The trouble is identifying them successfully at minimal cost. Hiring & firing a poor programmer costs money.

[1] http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/universit...

[2] http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/com...

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#269

Post by cottonseed »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #244
pastProlog wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the essay: But it is dishonest of the anti-immigration people to claim that companies like Google and Facebook are driven by the same motives. An influx of inexpensive but mediocre programmers is the last thing they'd want; it would destroy them. Eric Schmidt not only illegally colluded in a conspiracy to drive down programmer salaries, his e-mails say things like "this may be illegal so delete this e-mail". I…

Trying to keep the wages low of people you know are good is a different issue than trying to hire people from other countries. Now, BigCos may still want good people they bring from the outside to have low wages, but that doesn't change the fact that they still want to (and can't) bring in good people from the outside.

It's simple supply and demand. You bring in more people, wages drop. Collusion and immigration policy are two tools to achieve the same goal.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#270

Post by tomohawk »

gnufied wrote: post #146
austenallred wrote: post #12

I really want to believe this, but I'm not sure that I do. Of course the tech companies want to hire people from overseas; being able to hire someone from India for half the cost but have them live in the US so there's some level of accountability/trust is a no-brainer. Huge new, cheap talent pool. But, if I'm an entry-level, US-based programmer, what I see are floods of cheap talent, some with questionable skills, c…

I wonder where do you get your data for "hire someone from India for half the cost". Of all the facts thrown around - this is easily verifiable - http://www.h1bwage.com/index.php If you ignore those employed on hourly basis, a majority of people on H1B are paid quite well. Apart from salary and benefits - add Visa processing fees for their Kids and Spouse as well (which can easily amount to > 30k+) I think people und…

The real problem with h1b is that it appears to be primarily used to offshore jobs to other countries. The largest users of h1b visas are firms that bring people to the US for a period of time to get trained, then have them return to their country of origin, offshoring the work (see for example http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-02-08/work-visas-ma...)

So, tossing H1B would be a great start at immigration reform. Instead, we should prefer immigrants with educational backgrounds in skills we need, and who have the best chance at assimilation.

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